Here is the text of " The news" for talk 25002500-01A speaker on the matter of mental alteration so said to an audience:"The trick is to neither reject thought, nor embrace it.", and someone asked:"What is it in us that can either reject or embrace thought?",and the speaker replied: "The same thing in you that presently asks methe question.", and the man then said: "But it is only a thought in methat made my mouth speak the question, so it is a circle without beginning,or end, and your directive, (as fine as it may sound), is meaningless,is it not?!", and the speaker replied: "Most assuredly, and in that yourealize it: I am glad I could be of service.".

Even though the episode makes another primary pointthere is nonetheless potential usefulness, (if you need it), in the idea of neither rejecting nor embracing thought.

It's always good advice to get out of the way of a man either:seeking the truth -- orfleeing from it;for either way: a man on a frantic merry go round can run you down.

...I can't let us leave this area without finally mentioning that legendary figure who stood atop the canyon's highest bridge, tied securely to the illusionary Boomadary-bungee-cord, who mightily cried, as he prepared to jump:“I reject all thought -- and unconditionally embrace my rejection."

2500-02A man asked a purported mystic:"How can I be of an enlightened mind?", and the mystic replied:"Do not have dark clouds in your mind.", and the man reflected on thisreply for a bit, then said: "That sounds good, but I have come to realizethat the dark clouds I find in my mind do not originate there -- so:where do they come from and how can I stop them before they enter my mind?",and the alleged mystic's face fell in apparent embarrassment, and the man said:"You don't know, do you?", and shame-faced, the mystic nodded that he didn't ---- but then his face suddenly brightened and he exclaimed (somewhat rhetorically"Well, you could watch what you eat?!?"

When working on the mind, you could be on the right battlefield, but battlin' the wrong foe.

(Those thugs in the trenches weren't born there you know.)

And another guy asked a man, (who it turns out probably was a mystic): "Does anyone actually -- know what they're doing?", and the guy replied: "Only those who say they do."....The man chewed on this for a moment, then said:"It's a joke -- right?!"...(You know, the jokes you find out there in the foxholes didn't get there all by themselves.)

2500-03 There was once a man who became trapped in a house of vapors; the vapors came from his own breathing.

Once upon a time there was a man whose solution to being asleep & deluded was: "Neither reject nor embrace your breathing."

...(and I will not insult you by noting that he may have used the word, "breathing" as a metaphor for something else entirely.)

2500-04A man told a friend:"As far as seeing what's really going on;everyone looks every where except in the right place.", and his friend asked:"How can you tell that you're looking in the wrong place?",and the man said: "If you're thinking about where you're looking ---- it's the wrong place."

There was once a bird spotter whose supreme aim was to see this one exotic bird that had always eluded him.It turned out that it flew too fast to be seen by normal sight,and it further turned out that it only flew when he thought about it....Which suddenly reminds me of the legendary question that some say wasthe very beginning of all attempts to change one's state of mind, (and it was): "What is it that doesn't exist unless you think about it,and is impossible to see as long as it is in an active state of existence?"...Which I guess brings us back to the beginning of this verbal episode that said: "To see what's really going on;everyone looks every where except in the right place."....(Least we can't see we wasn't warned.)...Oh yeah, and that story about a guy who's invented binoculars that look back at ya when you look through them -- turns out it was a hoax.

2500-05A son asked his father:"Are we after a pure mind, an empty mind, or a still mind?",and his dear pa pa replied: "How about a --"hard-of-hearing"one?!"

Below the cortical level: all is timeless,Above it everything is chipmunks ..,

"Somebody pickup that phone!" "Somebody put down that phone!""I didn't want that call!""Don't bother me, i'm waiting on that other call!" "Leave me alone, can't you see that I'm-on-the-phone!"

2500-06A man who for years had studied with an enlightened masterone day rushed to him, exclaiming: "I've finally got it -- all figured out!", and the master calmly said: "No you don't."....The man thought about this for a while, then softly said "Oh."

(I will not insult you by verbally noting the point of this story,for anyone still unable to decide whether to reject or embrace thought can easily figure it out for themself.)

2500-07Man talking about the material world outside of him is science; Man talking about himself is meaningless speculation.You can measure a tree's height, but only guess at the mind's width.

2500-08After studying for many years with a certain mystic, and one dayupon suddenly deciding that he had been mislead all along,a man rushed into the mystic's room and exclaimed: "I am -- outraged!!", to which the mystic calmly replied:"No you're not, --- you're asleep,"

After finding himself unable to satisfactorily complete the metaphysical journey from Paris to Istanbul one man headed off toward new Zealand.

2500-09By thought,All men are mental gods made;For with each breath weCreate,Then destroyThe secondary reality in which we so predominately swim.

And all the fish in the common school sang:"We embrace the water;We reject the water.",It is so that they must singTo remain a part of the school.

For a few,from a particular view,there is a "something" that: puts you awake -- then, Makes you asleep. and "the-fish-who-knows" is the one realizes the impotent foolishness of rejecting or embracing the water in that it and he are inseparable.The mental worlds we create & destroy with each breath come from no where, and go to no where in that all worlds are an unrecognized singularity.

2500-10After years of attempting to follow the school's central dictum of:"Know theyself.",one monk was finally taken aside by the head master and told:"It's not actually a matter of knowing yourself,but of knowing the mechanism that "knows yourself"."...And after a momentarily reflection of this the neophyte thought: "now you tell me!", to which the master replied: "Yes, and just at the right time, huh?!"

2500-11Question: What's it like to want to awaken during the time that you don't really understand what it's about?Answer: It's like a shadow trying to sustain a dislike of itself.

2500-12One man notes: "The ever-changing, different elements that seem to make up "me"come and go as regularly as the minutes tick away.Where does this "me" come from, and where does it go?! ... No, better I should ask:What is the sole source of this sensation-of a "me"?",...And after a brief reflection on his own question, he repeated his opening: "The ever-changing, different elements that seem to make up "me"come and go as regularly as the minutes of my life tick away

Below the cortical level of thought; all is timeless; Above it prevails the law of apparent chaos."

And from his over head plane, one pilot suggested:"For smooth flying the trick is to neither reject nor embrace the:"apparent chaos"."

2500-13Re that popular subject: The so-called, "Illusions of the world": It's certainly easy to overlook but --the "illusions of the world" do not existout in the world, but in your mind.

2500-14A guy stood up at a recent gathering and made this declaration:"This, "I'm-gonna-wake-myself-up-and-be-enlightened" thing that everybody's talkin' bout is tantamount to sayin', "I'm gonna kiss my own lips."."He then looked around as though inviting questions from the audience, but everyone was too involved in puckering their lips and rolling their rolling their eyes upward.... (I dunno, maybe it was a convention of, "Hopers & Dreamers"?

2500-15One man said:"What I like about impending, unpleasant events is that theytake my mind off of me.", and his brother responded:"But how can that be? -- your mind is you?!,Thus no matter the subject of your present thoughtsyour mind is always ---still on you."

2500-16A look at that certain matter from a temporal view. Neither reject nor embrace the instant moment.and someone asks:"Is the trick to being enlightenedto be -- "Indifferent"?",and I reply:Being indifferent is the same as being enlightened,But this indifference is not the same as usually understood;This enlightened indifference is not of a mental nature, (not cortical),But is like the type natural to our sub cortical existence.

It might in fact be better labeled, "impersonal"For it is only in our cortical realm that we take life "personally",While sub-cortically we have not even the mechanism to take life personally,

Thus a man who's caught on to what's going on neither rejects nor embracesThe life that seems to happen to him,For whatever it may be --He does not take it personally,And is thus indifferent to come-what-mentally-may.

2500-17One man's ode to that certain matter:The best thing aboutThe voice in my head Is it leads the life I wish that I lead.....(0-kay!)

2500-18If 'tis true,As often said,That poverty's required to awaken,Then the poverty needed is in being without either rejection or embrace of thought....So that a man can say:"I have nothing to give,I have nothing to withhold.",At which time a man has -- said it all,And is now "Properly poor."...(And I can't resist mentioning, [for the sake of those already inan advanced stage of suitable verbal/mental poverty), that ----- In all of this talk about neither "rejecting, nor embracing" this-or-that,it would be more on hidden point to say it as either:"Not rejecting, and not, 'not' rejecting", or"Not embracing, and not, 'not' embracing."...Is your inner sight cleaned out enough to recognize why this would bean improved telling of this matter?)

2020-19When your mind does not know the truth, life outside of you is one way;When your mind does know the truth, life outside of you is the same as it was.When it's dark, it's dark, andWhen it's light, it's light....And that's all there is to it all.

Jan Cox

Enlightenment is promised by many, but few dare work for it. You may have heard of zen, sufi, 4th way or The Work of Gurdjieff, but if what they promise is what you must have - then you are going to have to insist on it. Jan Cox recorded 3,300 talks, and we have archived them as well as all of his writings.

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